


The Last Good Year - Letters to the past

by CommanderYob



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderYob/pseuds/CommanderYob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I play this game with myself where I pretend I never made it home from Alaska. That I’m still laying on the tundra with shrapnel in my face, hallucinating from the painkillers while I wait to be airlifted out, and that I’ll wake up in a nice clean hospital bed, and you’ll be there."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Good Year - Letters to the past

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly an exercise in getting into the head of my character. Probably not of much interest to anyone else, but here it is anyway.

Dearest Nora,

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I play this game with myself where I pretend I never made it home from Alaska. That I’m still laying on the tundra with shrapnel in my face, hallucinating from the painkillers while I wait to be airlifted out, and that I’ll wake up in a nice clean hospital bed, and you’ll be there. That version leaves Shaun out of the picture, though, so another version of make-believe I play has us waking up on October 23rd, and me rolling over to tell you about this nightmare I had, in which the world was destroyed and you and Shaun were taken from me. You snuggle closer to me and whisper that it’s alright; that you and our son will always be here. We both chalk it up to the PTSD (I mean, sure, I’ve been in therapy for about a year now, but that kind of thing doesn’t fade quickly), then get up and have coffee and breakfast and a picnic in the park, and later that evening I go to give my speech.

The third version is the one I play most often, though, because it’s the closest to reality, the one that’s easiest to pretend is real. In that version, everything up to climbing into the pod and immediately afterwards is real, including the sudden drop in temperature as the frost creeps across the glass and I feel unconsciousness closing in around me. In that version, Vault-Tec still tricked us, but we’re safe, frozen in our respective pods, with our brains just active enough to come up with vivid nightmare hallucinations to fill in the hours or days or however long we’ve been there. When we wake up, months have passed, and instead of being completely destroyed, the good old USA is already rising from the ashes.

But then I wake up (for real this time) to the siren going off down what’s left of the street. Preston is yelling about raiders, and my make-believe world is gone. Again. So I roll out of bed in the bedroom we used to share, and grab my rifle. I don’t stop to strap on my body armor; I just crouch behind the barrier and pick them off, one at a time, and each one I pretend is that motherfucker who shot you. When the raiders break ranks and try to retreat, I charge after them, practically naked, screaming with someone else’s voice and emptying magazine after magazine into them. When the last raider lays dead, I stand over his body wishing there were more of them, because as long as I am fighting, there’s no time to feel anything but rage. 

I hate this world. I hate that it took you and Shaun from me. I hate that the inhabitants of this new world are so helpless that they need me to help them survive and rebuild, that they’ve made me out to be some kind of hero, that my conscience won’t let me abdicate my duty to my fellow human beings. And I know it’s a selfish thought, but honestly, if my conscience would allow, I would let the world burn all over again just to hold you in my arms one more time.

Three things keep me going. One, Shaun is out there somewhere, and I will find him. Two, the aforementioned sense of duty (and, despite my complaining, I have met some truly good people out here, and even though I sometimes resent them, I do care about them, and want to help them. You always did tease me about what you called my "superhero complex")

But the third thing that keeps me going... I want revenge. Not justice, but revenge.

I know you wouldn’t approve. And I’m sorry. But when I find the people who took you and Shaun from me, I will wreak a such a horrible vengeance upon them, their associates, their allies, and anyone who so much as looks like they’re considering getting in my way, that the body count alone will become legend.

In the meantime, I continue to breathe. To exist. To help rebuild, because my goddamned conscience and sense of duty and honor won’t let me do anything else. 

But I am only alive when I dream of you. And Shaun. And 2077. 

The last good year.


End file.
